Axel Schmiegelow

VCs are sooooo cyclical

Rumour has it VCs are downbeat again. Well, on the one hand I can’t blame them, and on the other it brings me back the structural problem of assessing innovation as an investor. I have been observing a very fashion-driven, impressionable and cyclical focus of VCs on The Things That Exit Well (TTTEW), coupled with a regularly disdainful disregard of Never Heard of That (NHoT) and Don’t Believe It Works (DBIW).

Interestingly, most acclaimed hot shots, like skype, or Social Bookmarking, or even Apple in the beginning, went through year-long phases of NHoT and DBIW before sparking real Oh God I Hope We’ll Get a Deal in That Space Epidemic (OGIHWGaDiTSE).

Now as a proponent of a few Startups That Earn Actual Money (STEAM) – I like to think of our company as having a STEAM-Engine, being STEAM-Driven, or believing in STEAM-Power, if that is not too much self-E-STEAM – I keep wondering why it is much harder for VCs to see the merits of Social Commerce models vs. simple Social Network models.

There is no logical explanation for this. And if you think of it, copying something that just exited well is about the stupidest thing you can do:

1. It has already been done
2. It has become big enough to just exit
3. It has become so big everybody actually knows about it
4. There are at least 100 other boy group founding teams and greedy-panicky Vijays (see Dilbert for who that is) funding them who are trying to do the latest GooTube thing

…doesn’t strike you as smart? It’s being done. All the time. Again. And it’s sooo 1990s, ain’t it?